1907 – Royal Oil and Shell merge to form British Petroleum (BP)
1907 – Congress raises its own salaries to $7,500.
1919 – Congress establishes Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.
1929 – President Calvin Coolidge establishes Grand Teton National Park.
1935 – New York Yankees release Babe Ruth. He signs with the Boston Braves.
1938 – First passenger ship equipped with radar.
1945 – Very heavy bombing on Berlin by 8th US Air Force.
1949 – US Air Force plane begins first nonstop around the world flight.
1953 – 10th Golden Globes: “The Greatest Show on Earth”, Gary Cooper and Shirley Booth win.
1960 – United States’ David Jenkins wins Olympic Gold for men’s figure skating.
1967 – 9th Daytona 500: Mario Andretti wins his first and only NASCAR Grand National event. It’s the only time a driver born outside the United States has won the Great American Race.
1973 – 8th Academy of Country Music Awards: Merle Haggard and Donna Fargo win.
1977 – First flight of Space Shuttle. It came atop a Boeing 747.
1983 – Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album goes No. 1 and stays there for 37 weeks.
1987 – NBA’s Michael Jordan’s 58 points is a single-game Chicago Bulls record.
1993 – “World Trade Center bombing of 1993”: A truck bomb explodes in the parking garage of New York City’s World Trade Center at 12:18 p.m., killing 6 and injuring over 1,000 in what was the deadliest act of terrorism perpetrated on US soil at the time.
2004 – The United States lifts a ban on travel to Libya, ending travel restrictions to the nation that had lasted for 23 years.
2013 – A flexible battery capable of being charged wirelessly and folded and stretched is developed.
2019 – More than 4,500 complaints of child sexual abuse against migrant children received by US Health Department. The Department of Justice received 1,300 more.
2021 – Toymaker Hasbro announces that the Mr. Potato Head brand name will be changed to be gender-neutral.